Pitch Update

The Greenhous Meadow surface continues to hold up well despite the indifferent weather of late.

Flooding and frost have taken effect over recent weeks, but Dave Saltman of Maxwell Amenity Ltd is pleased with how the pitch is playing at this time of the year.

“The pitch is holding up well,” Dave told ShrewsWeb.

“The team are starting to use it a little bit more for training because we’ve had more inclement weather recently, a lot of rain, but the pitch is holding up well.

“It’s perhaps not quite as good as last year because the renovation we did this year was slightly more economical, but we just need to get it through to the end of the season and then we can turn it over again.

“We’re doing very little on the pitch at this time of year. We’re trying to keep the plant standing up, so we’ve got a little bit of brushing to do, but very little rolling and mowing.

“We’re still getting a little bit growth. We had the cold spell a couple of weeks ago, but last week it was getting up towards 14 degrees again so the grass had perked up and where we’ve got the lights on the pitch the grass continues to grow anyway.”

Meanwhile, out on the training pitch the players continue to be able to work hard as it stands up to whatever nature throws at it.

“We’re very pleased with the training pitch,” said Dave.

“Traditionally, that pitch never used to last much past October and we’re obviously in the middle of December now and the teams still training out there.”

“We verti-drained it last week and as long as we can keep the surface draining then we’ve got a chance of them using it as a training facility rather than using the main stadium pitch.

“I wouldn’t expect to be able to use it throughout the winter, but the hope is that with the buildings going into the training ground they may be able to train up there perhaps in January time.”